Of Inconvenient Euphoria
by Zaedah
Summary: What they'd been doing in the name of surveillance had been no exercise in proper police work.


**_Another hard drive clogger that needed to be released or euthanized. A mythical event sometime after the series finale..._**

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**Of Inconvenient Euphoria**

There's no chapter in the police training manual to cover this.

It's not specifically mentioned from a tactical perspective, though the interpersonal section, if turned sideways, warns against practicing this technique in a more personal context. As it's applied now, it may qualify as excessive force, for which the manual reserves several chapters without actually condemning. Still, it's an established surveillance ploy in countless cop shows that feature a mixed gender partnership.

The Distraction Kiss.

Statistics show that criminals are, on the whole, an unobservant bunch. They take for granted that when a couple is pressed against a public wall and moving with more haste than is recommended for the continuation for an upright position, there's a more immediate reason than observation. The average crook will ignore the ardent display. And possibly envy it. Tonight's perp, a black-gloved thug of indiscriminate age, apparently hasn't seen enough robbery movies. A weighted bag is lugged down the front steps of a palatial townhouse that his Salvation Army clothes and giddy strut suggest does not belong to him. The suspect weaves slowly in the direction of those watching his movement for evidence of a strangulation proclivity and there's no alley to duck into, no business to stumble inside.

Detective Crews, a man not known for indulging in practicalities, mentions some Buddhist philosophy on hiding in the embrace of the open. Detective Reese, being not only practical but irrationally affected by her partner's hushed voice, backs him up into the nearest brick wall to employ what she'll later claim is the only strategy available to avoid detection.

Slaughtering the concept of 'hands off' works. Up to a sharp and eager point.

The ruse doesn't require that she slip her tongue into his mouth, though she does. He doesn't have to draw her so resolutely against him, but he does. There's no need to go this deep, to get this lost, but they do because the excuse is too compelling to squander. No suspect would waste precious time questioning the legitimacy of the sight based on the stimulating visual evidence and this one doesn't, shuffling off without paying any additional attention to the pair currently trying to fuse on a molecular level.

Reese pays no mind either because while a Person Of Interest may be fleeing the scene, she's far more interested in how much sin she can steal from his mouth. And said interest is expressed aggressively and with a stellar disregard for unwritten regulations which imply that her leg should not be hitched around his calf. It's the sort of playacting that forgets to fake. Something that could be joy – or just a condensed eternity of lust – tries on her soul for size and finds the fit pleasing.

Until euphoria meets a violent end.

Because despite the intended destination of her errant hand, Crews maintains the focus of one accustomed to meditation in raucous places. Which doesn't mean that he isn't breathless when he steps from between the snug vice she's formed with the wall and tracks the suspect's entry into a late model car no longer a convincing burgundy. The license plate is captured by Crews' camera phone and he moves to the passenger door of their black sedan, waiting for her brain to catch up with the equally nonfunctional limbs with no small measure of notice.

Damn his smirk.

Pushing back the hair that he'd dislodged from its binding, Reese climbs behind the wheel and tries to remember how to multitask. Following the suspect's rolling rust exhibit and forcing down the problematic desires that can have no respectable outlet takes up the entirety of her attention. Which is how she winds up rear-ending a bright green Jetta. It signals the end of the bumper and their collective composure.

Crews is coordinating by phone with Bobby Stark, pacing the curb in a way that suggests irritation has managed to break through the Zen shield. Whether it's genuine whiplash or a latent sexual urge she can't tell. Of the many skills Reese has acquired on the job, reading her partner falls under the category of spitting into tornados. The jacket and tie have been relegated to the backseat of their parked and crinkled car and the part of her mind still glazed by their impropriety wonders of her tall partner might also fit back there. That line of thought is halted when the patrolman arrives to craft a report around her distracted driving.

_Sorry officer, my partner and I just took an off-ramp to inappropriate._

With a battered ego to match the front end, Reese's focus on the drive to the station borders on fanatical. Hands plastered at ten and two, turn signals faithfully utilized and word economized to contain only the barest of responses to his recitation of their evidence. Verbally sifting through the pieces helps him see the whole but the burned silk of his voice will not get them home safely. The evidence that matters to the heated woman at present includes everything she'd discovered when sudden proximity eliminated unfamiliarity. Being molded that close to him had left an impression that what they'd been doing in the name of surveillance had been no exercise in proper police work. Clearly the man is no monk. She doesn't want to think about him that way but now it's all she can do.

And it follows her home.

The last thing a guilty person wants to see is the one against whom they've sinned. But the captain's too busy tugging at various pieces of his own clothing in a huff. Someone had called him pasty and his preoccupied lover has no supporting proof to the contrary. And he speaks the name, the one that earns shivers tonight. An acknowledgment of her suitor's ashen pallor gains her no reprieve, especially after she cites the example of ideal fairness that is her partner. That Kevin doesn't call her on what must be scratched into her face is a clue that Tidwell possesses either blatant blindness or selective perception. Whatever he discusses next becomes background noise to the replays she couldn't stop with a brick to the head.

Leaving a confused man to pack what little of himself she'd ever allowed into her home, Reese is facing the pre-dawn hours by strapping into a car as yet undamaged by distractions. There's a technique she wants to practice in a more personal context.

And she's bringing fruit.


End file.
